Philippines: Eps 9 - 11

Many apologies for my insanely delayed blog post! With the holidays, the house, and probably a few other excuses I could dig up this fell right off of my to-do list. I hope to do better from now on!

The Standings:

Giant Bloody Brazilian Cola - Moon: 97 points
[1. RC (21.5 pts)]
2. Skupin (21.5 pts) 
[3. Jeff  (21.5 pts)]
4. Abi-Maria (22.5 pts)

Love Line: Old Balls & Tiaras - Doug/Bri: 84.5 points
[1. Penner (41.5 pts)]
2. Denise (14 pts)
[3. Artis (23.5 pts)]
[4. Katie (5.5 pts)]

The Clap - Bag/Leah: 72.5 points
[1. Pete (27.5 pts)]
2. Carter (29.5 pts)
[3. Angie (0 pts)]
4. Lisa (15.5 pts)

I'm on Dregs! - Michal: 20 points
1. Malcolm (21 pts)
[2. Dana (-4.5 pts)]
[3. Dawson (3.5 pts)]
[4. Russell (0 pts)]

Power Rankings: 


  1. Giant Bloody Brazilian Cola - I thought this was a close call until I realized I didn't give Abi her 10 points for successfully playing her hidden immunity idol. Now I think it's pretty much decided. Moon has a decent lead & 2 players left who are guaranteed to bring in at minimum 10 more points each. Unless something crazy happens - like a final tribal vote sweep - I don't think anyone can catch him.

2. The Clap - Bag & Leah are ranked 2nd currently because they have 2 players & one of them is the remarkably competitive Carter. He very well could win enough immunities to get himself into the finals & bring Bag & Leah a big bag of points on the way there. And who knows? If he does & somehow Lisa makes the finals with Skupin there's a real chance that she could win the whole thing.


3. Love Line: Old Balls & Tiaras - I adore Denise & I really hope she wins. I'm not sure that people are giving her enough credit for the strategy that going on, although I think that her speech at tribal council about how dislikeable Abi is will help. Go Denise!

4. I'm on Dregs! - It sounds like Malcolm is favored to win this season, but that doesn't mean much to me right now. Actually, what it DOES mean to me is that we should not do the draft the same way next season. Going first without a re-draw for the second round of draft picks really means that the #1 picker only gets to have 1 good pick & guarantees them the worst player. Lesson learned.


Douche of the Week:


The worst part of this! Many DoWs to catch up on. Here's how I have it so far:

Ep 8: Tie between Pete & Abi-Maria (2 votes each) - voting closed

Ep 9: Abi-Maria (2 votes)

Ep 10: Abi-Maria (2 votes)

Ep 11: Abi-Maria & Lisa (1 vote each)

Because of how much of a slacker I am, I am giving everyone the chance to re-vote for Episodes 9-11. Even if you already voted, you have the chance to vote again & have your vote count twice!! In comments, be sure to specify which episode your vote should count for. & to help out a little, here are the episode recaps:

Ep 9: Everyone's still reeling from the crazytown tribal where everyone pulled out their hidden idols & Jeff ended up getting voted out. In the reward challenge the "good guys" team wins & visits a village & feasts. The group left behind is Michael, Artis, Lisa, Pete & Abi, who spends her time leaning on Lisa telling her she doesn't trust her, etc. At tribal, Lisa says that the people outside her alliance were more gracious than her alliance. Skupin switches his vote & Artis gets voted out.

Ep 10: Lisa "breaks up" with Abi-Maria; the reward challenge is where they run around flipping drums & everyone is absolutely terrible at the strategy. Malcolm, Pete, Abi-Maria and Carter end up winning & they have a spa day that Abi raves on and on and on and on about. Abi starts refusing to help around camp & then Denise goes to task on Abi at tribal. Jeff shames the entire country of Brazil by saying this must be a cultural communication issue. Abi successfully uses her idol & Pete goes home.

Ep 11: Abi is emotional but still really obnoxious. They have an auction where the alliance of 6 underestimates Abi & she gets the big advantage at the immunity challenge. In the end it's Carter with 10% of his own body weight added & Penner who've both run the whole course & Abi who is only running the last leg. This made this challenge as even as possible, I think, and it was very entertaining to watch. Ultimately Abi wins immunity & the tribe votes out Penner. Penner had the chance to save himself but rejected a 4-person alliance when it was offered to him, so now it's Denise, Malcolm, Skupin & Lisa who are setting themselves up to be the Final Four, and Abi & Carter on the edges.

My personal votes (not included in the above tallies) are:

Ep 9: Abi
Ep 10: Abi
Ep 11: Penner

Looking forward to getting your votes (again) too!!